The Morning’s Top 5 Pop Culture Stories

1.Non-Risky Business decision: Jeremy Renner confirms that he will take over for Tom Cruise in the Mission Impossible series if Cruise decides to retire from future installments! [via /film]

2. “In its extreme self-consciousness, the album Fantasy reminds me most of is John Lennon’s cathartic 1970 Plastic Ono Band record.” The Guardian reviews My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy with an astute comparison of Kanye West to John Lennon, declaring that both this and Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band record were “made by one of the great talents of their age, at the peak of their celebrity, thoroughly dissatisfied with themselves.” [via The Guardian]

3. David O. Russel has finally made a “feel-good movie,” according to Newsweek, with The Fighter. Oh come on, as if I ❤ Huckabees wasn’t just the warm-and-fuzziest movie about existentialism and corporate expansion ever made! [via Newsweek]

4. Elling, the English adaptation of a Norwegian bestseller and Brendan Fraser‘s Broadway debut, will close after only 22 previews and nine regular performances. It’s shocking to see how its two main selling points failed to capture an audience (!?) but we’re sad to see it go before it hit its stride (It was worth it just to see Jennifer Coolidge on stage). [via NYT]

5. Beyonce vs. Taylor Swift, Prime-Time Thanksgiving Version: Two blondes, but only one seemed to be having fun. Guess which? [via Arts Beat]